This invention is generally directed to telecommunication systems which periodically generate operational data that is analyzed to evaluate the system or elements in the system. More specifically, this invention is directed to improvements in the processing of such data.
The public switched telephone network (PSTN) provides an illustrative example of a telecommunications system in which a plurality of switches, such as AT&T 5ESS.RTM. switches, are distributed throughout the network to service associated subscribers. Each switch monitors its own operational characteristics and periodically generates a block of operational data. This data is collected, such as by an AT&T traffic data management system, and stored in a series of tables in a relational database. This stored data is then analyzed by a traffic engineer utilizing the capabilities of the database to locate anomalies and conditions which indicate current problems or could lead to future problems.
While such a process for analyzing the operational data is effective, substantial computational resources and time are required to process this data in view of its voluminous nature. For example, each switch may generate a block of operational data consisting of 1,000-70,000 bytes of data every 30 minutes. Since the data is typically analyzed over a predetermined time frame, such as 24 hours, a substantial amount of data is accumulated. This results in the allocation of substantial computing resources and relatively long times required to process the data. The time required to process the data is exacerbated due to the substantial overhead processing requirements associated with relational databases. Thus, there exists a need to minimize the computational time associated with processing such operational data.